1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to network management systems and methods of collecting management information data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Communication nodes located between wide area networks and local area data networks have been deployed commercially. An example of a communication node is a channel service unit/data service unit (CSU/DSU). CSU/DSU units that are currently available for deployment receive and forward data traffic between a wide area network and a local area network.
Network management systems typically rely on CSU/DSU units to monitor networks and equipment. Network management systems can be connected to a wide area network and may collect management reports from multiple CSU/DSU units via the wide area network. Network management systems use such collected information to administer service level agreements, monitor equipment, and the like. Some of the network equipment is owned and operated by customers and other equipment is owned and operated by a service provider, such as a telecommunications company. Customer billing can be based on a guaranteed minimum throughput and/or a local loop charge. For proper billing and to determine and allocate customer billing credits, network management system operators need information that differentiates between customer equipment faults and service provider outages.
CSU/DSU units are often connected directly to a wide area network via asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) equipment, but in some implementations the CSU/DSU unit may transfer frame relay communications to an intermediate network in the communication path to the wide area network. The intermediate network is typically transparent to the CSU/DSU unit. Depending on the connection to the wide area network, some CSU/DSU units are not capable of monitoring the intermediate connection used to transfer the data traffic. Lack of network management information is problematic when implementing service level agreements where customers are charged based on data bandwidth on the transparent connection.
Accordingly, there is a need for an enhanced method of accessing management data for transparent connections or networks.
The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items.